Read Vivian Arend Rocky Mountain Home Online Free
Rocky Mountain Retreat
Six Pack Ranch: Book 8
Vivian Arend
Contents
Rocky Mountain Retreat
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter iii
Chapter iv
Chapter 5
Affiliate 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Affiliate 10
Chapter 11
Affiliate 12
Epilogue
About the Author
Rocky Mount Retreat
Finding white-hot love in a white-out…
* * *
8 months ago, Lee Coleman met the adult female of his dreams…and then lost her to some other man. He buried his thwarting by throwing himself into work on the family ranch, simply when a winter storm leaves him stranded, Lee finds more than shelter in the rustic safety of a hunter's cabin—he finds a 2nd shot at love.
Rachel Malone's heart has been broken and stomped on by her cheating ex, and she's determined to never autumn in love over again. But a rebound fling? Doesn't sound like such a bad idea, particularly when she'south snowed-in with a gorgeous, sweetness-talking Coleman.
Despite their off-the-charts chemistry, Lee makes it clear he wants more than a temporary romp. In fact, he's fabricated it his mission to put a smiling back on her face up, even if it ways taking it tedious and resisting the scorching heat betwixt them. This time around, he wants forever, while Rachel is positive that forever is a fool's dream.
Lee can't expect to prove her wrong…
6 Pack Ranch
Rocky Mountain Heat
Rocky Mountain Haven
Rocky Mountain Want
Rocky Mountain Angel
Rocky Mountain Insubordinate
Rocky Mountain Freedom
Rocky Mountain Romance
Rocky Mount Retreat
Rocky Mountain Shelter
Rocky Mountain Devil
Rocky Mountain Dwelling house
If you'd similar to know what new books I have coming, and stay upwards to date with releases, please sign upward for my newsletter.
one
November, somewhere in the Alberta Rocky Mountains
Rachel Malone shivered as she eased up the handle on the small airtight stove. She added some other log to go on the burn going, leaving the door wide open as she hauled over a chair from the tiny kitchen area so she could sit in front of the inferno. The fire crackled with delight at the extra fuel, flames licking their way upwardly the sides of the forest like orange and yellow fingers.
She dragged the photo album off the tabular array behind her and plopped it into her lap, taking a deep jiff for courage.
The cutout in the creamy white embrace showed her and Gary smile at each other, vivid sunshine surrounding them—man, she remembered exactly how she'd felt at that moment. Light-headed and excited, and then full of dreams for the future. And then sure she was head-over-heels in love.
Rachel unlatched the front end encompass and pulled out the eight-past-ten, admiring the outfit she wore, the tan linen showing off her dark shoulder-length pilus to perfection. "Damn, I looked skillful."
She flung the picture into the fire, the heat instantly taking effect as the newspaper ignited, their faces melting into oblivion.
She turned her attention back to the album equally she flipped information technology open to deal with the beginning official page. One after the other she peeled out the pictures, her vox echoing in the serenity of the small room as she talked to herself. "Of course I'd dear to go out for dinner to this fancy restaurant. Of class I'd similar to try that appetizer, if you insist. Gag."
Raw oysters. She shuddered before contributing another picture to the bonfire blazing ever hotter before her.
She paused in the middle of removing the reminders of her past half-dozen months and the whirlwind romance she'd shared with Gary Ricardo. Stared at the photograph in her fingers without seeing it.
Whirlwind was authentic, romance though? Definitely not the correct give-and-take, non considering that hither she was, 5 months after maxim I do knowing I don't would've been a far ameliorate pick. Pictures from their month of dating, shots from their July honeymoon in Tahiti—all torn from the album to be sacrificed to the burn along with the charred remains of her heart.
A snicker escaped. "Melodramatic, much?" she chastised herself.
She rose and went to the window. The common cold seeping through the pane cooled her flushed forehead as she eased closer to the drinking glass and peered into the growing twilight.
Melodrama wasn't how she typically dealt with things. Nothing well-nigh her relationship with Gary had been typical, though. Maybe she should've known improve, but at the same fourth dimension he had fooled her enough that when she found evidence he was cheating on her, the blow had struck straight through the centre.
Outside the motel the late-November atmospheric condition had turned ugly. She pressed her palms to the window, watching every bit huge snowflakes twirled downward just to be shoved aside with each new gust of air current. Already a foot of the white stuff had accumulated on top of her automobile. It was a good matter she wasn't planning on going anywhere for a while.
Nope. She was there in the wilderness for her own private lick your wounds retreat, and she had a good 5 days before anyone expected her dorsum in Rocky Mountain House. She needed to put her screwup of a relationship behind her so she could move forward into something far improve.
Merely as the temperature dropped further, and the snowfall continued to autumn, Rachel worried she might have bitten off more than than she could chew. Snow had piled up on the path betwixt her and the outhouse, a thick blanket covered the wood stack, and the cold increased, creeping through the log walls.
In the involvement of saving herself from having to venture outside for more forest in the middle of the night, she pulled on her boots and heavy winter parka, and slipped out the backstairs. It was a cold and miserable job, but far amend than running out of fuel.
A sudden tug at her neck caught her by surprise, and she froze in the middle of lowering her load. Somehow her necklace had worked loose from nether her layers and become tangled around the rough bark. Rachel moved carefully to complimentary it—that necklace was one of her only mementos from her grandmother, and she'd detest to suspension it.
She badly needed to go on all the good memories she had intact, thank y'all very much.
Rachel looped the gold concatenation over a nail past the congenital-in bookshelf then returned to her task. Ane armload afterward another, she carried forest to beside the stove, stomping the snowfall off her anxiety at the door the all-time she could on every trip until her pile was so alpine information technology teetered.
She went exterior once again for one terminal adventure to use the facilities. The wind roared in her ears, and the door to the cabin slammed shut, torn from her grasp. Ice crystals wedged their manner past her hood and scored her cheeks similar microscopic razor blades.
Rachel shuffled through the knee-deep snow and upwards the steps to the outhouse. The howling current of air cut off every bit she jerked the door airtight and stood in the small enclosure, her flashlight as pathetic as a single candle attempting to illuminate an unabridged pitch-black football field.
Sure, I tin can nab you lot a friend'due south hunting cabin for a getaway. It's non fancy, but the price is right.
Correct then she was cursing her tight-pocketed decision to accept up her friend Connie'southward offer. Instead of freezing her tushie to the seat of an outhouse, she could have been off at some spa in Banff, getting herself pampered from head to toe…
The reality of her nearly empty banking concern account knocked the spa fantasy into the crapper damn fast. Because of Gary, this rustic palace was all she could afford.
So be it. She wasn't going to weep over the jerk, or over how stupid she'd been. Non anymore. She was, however, going to make herself an enormous hot chocolate the instant she
got back in the motel, and if at least half the loving cup was liquid kick-in-the-pants, who was effectually to give her hell?
Rachel opened the outhouse door cautiously, bracing it confronting the air current. Already her footprints in the snow had filled in, barely visible in the dim low-cal from the flashlight.
She was hurrying toward shelter when a light broke over the loma not ten anxiety to her left. She twisted on the spot in surprise, her heart rate rocketing as she lifted her light and peered through the driving snow. A night shape loomed closer, and she shuffled forward, momentarily spooked equally she considered who on globe was coming to such a remote place at this time of night.
Unmarried woman, alone in the wood—lordy, she was about to become a victim of the killer with a hooked knife for a manus.
Every horror-story platitude she'd ever heard raced into her encephalon. She stepped off the path and tripped, the flashlight falling from her manus as she landed on her barrel. A cloud of snowfall puffed around her before existence driven abroad by the icy wind. Now the merely calorie-free was the one shining in her eyes.
It had taken far as well short a time, and already the stranger loomed over her, the extra-extra-big-size blackness-fur-trimmed parka turning him into a massive bearlike creature. One with a shotgun in his mitt.
Her imagination was working style overtime, and she hadn't started drinking yet. She scrambled astern, fleeing from danger, and a dissonance escaped her, something between a warning and a cry of fearfulness.
"Hey, it's okay. I won't hurt you."
Rachel fought to place the phonation as the lite blinding her lowered to the footing. She blinked to clear her vision, the intruder flipped back his hood, and the familiar features of Lee Coleman came into sight.
Relief flooded in along with the realization her jeans were soaking wet and her easily were going numb even in her thick mittens. "Lee. What are you doing hither?"
He peered closer, shock followed hard by confusion as his expression folded into a frown.
"Rachel?" He swooped forward and caught her hand, effortlessly pulling her to her anxiety. "What the heck are you doing sitting in the snow when it'southward so damn cold?"
"Making snow angels," she shot dorsum. "You scared me."
"I'm sad. I didn't expect to meet anyone outside." He squatted before her, handing up her flashlight before brushing snow from her pants. "I figured everyone would exist hiding out by the fire."
Yep, well, she wasn't about to explain about the outhouse. Rachel wiggled uncomfortably, both from the throbbing in her hands as she banged them together to knock the snow from her gloves, and the fact Lee was brushing her butt.
His touch was impersonal. Casual, in fact, simply it nevertheless caused weird sensations in her stomach. "Only leave it. I'm fine."
He rose, towering over her. "Become inside the cabin."
Her back stiffened at the order even though she knew it was a sensible one. Her days of meekly following orders from whatever man were over.
"What are y'all doing here?" she demanded once again. It was a affair of principle not to escape into the cabin in spite of the shivers setting in.
Lee stepped past her, catching her mittened paw at the final second and dragging her with him. "Nosotros're not belongings a long hi, how are y'all? discussion exterior. Information technology'south common cold as hell, and you're non dressed for the weather."
Just what she needed, another snobby man in her life. Non. Even so, he was right. It made no sense to stand outside suffering when he had the door open up and all the hot air was escaping.
"Thank you." She put equally much sarcasm into her comment equally possible, not surprised to hear him chuckle in response.
"This is going to be ane interesting evening." The softly spoken words escaped him every bit she followed him into the 1-room cabin.
She sighed. This? Exactly what she'd tried to avoid by heading into the wilderness. With i swoop, she was reminded all over what a fool she'd been. Lee knew everything—well, perchance non everything, but she was pretty sure he knew she'd been cheated on, and that before the ink was dry on her wedding certificate.
Sometimes fate had a crappy sense of humour.
* * *
Lee's feet were freezing, and his thighs ached from trudging through the deep snow. The olfactory property of gunpowder clung to him like redneck perfume from when he'd been forced to use the shotgun to put down an injured cow earlier in the twenty-four hours. His fingers were a mess from his attempts at jury-rigging the motor of his skidoo in subzero temperatures.
He felt as if he'd just been handed a winning lottery ticket.
Heck, Santa could forget virtually bringing whatsoever presents next calendar month, because he'd already gotten the one thing he wanted the most in the whole unabridged world.
Time with Rachel.
He placed the gun on the rack over the door so eased the backpack off his shoulders, dropping it to the floor before shedding his snowfall-covered jacket. Never in a meg years could he have imagined this situation. "Looks like I accept to crash your political party. The storm's getting worse, and my skidoo broke about half a mile from here."
"Actually?" Rachel slid dorsum to the window and peered into the darkness before facing him, big brown eyes broad with worry. "Aren't you supposed to stay with the sled if you break down?"
"Non when nobody's going to come looking for y'all, and not when yous tin olfactory property wood smoke on the air." He tilted his head toward her. "Become out of your moisture things. I'll castor the snow off my stuff so I don't soak the room."
She hurried to follow his instructions, cheeks flashing to pink. Lee turned his back and deliberately ignored the shuffling noises that followed, just in that location was no way to turn off the instant response of his body. Not when images of her getting partially naked a few feet behind him popped into his encephalon.
It had been a hell of a year for both of them, although Rachel probably wouldn't appreciate Lee linking them like that. And while he'd hated witnessing her world fall apart, she'd definitely had a far worse time of it than him.
From happily-in-love to thrown-under-the-charabanc, Rachel had dealt with way more than any woman should have to. Lee had been forced to sentinel from the sidelines, powerless to do anything to ease her hurting. Their ii situations were in no style comparable, just for him wanting to be with her and make it all ameliorate.
He now understood what his cousins meant when they'd sworn watching their partners bargain with pain injure far more than being thrashed themselves. Since the summer he'd seen the lite fade from Rachel's optics, and he wanted to kill the bastard who'd torn away her joy.
But that was a discussion for some time when he wasn't shivering, his wearing apparel sticking to his peel similar icy bandages.
He opened the top of his backpack and pulled out the sweatshirt and pants he carried with his emergency supplies. Steady silence echoed from her direction. Looked as if it was upward to him to make this less awkward.
"I went out to check the herd," he offered. Elementary. Safe conversation. "A tree fell over in the loftier winds this morning and took downward 1 of the fence lines. The dumb cattle decided exploring was a good idea even with a storm coming."
"Did you find your…cows?"
Her vox wavered on the last word, coincidentally said the moment he stripped his shirt off over his head. Lee chose to ignore the implied connexion that simply the sight of his naked trunk was enough to affect her. Still facing away, he knocked the moisture from his hair with the shirt before dropping it onto a nearby chair. He pulled on his dry sweatshirt as he gave a fractional answer. "Some. Got them into one of our shelters and locked them in—they'll be condom from the storm until my brothers gear up them loose."
He glanced over his shoulder. Rachel stood in front of the burn down, her hands extended toward the flames dancing behind the glass. He wondered if he should warn her and so realized he was too cold to play games. He dropped into the chair at the table, pulling off his boots with a groan of satisfaction. Snow escaped to lie in small piles effectually his thick wool socks.
"Do you want something hot to drink?" she aske
d.
"Hell, yeah." He waited until she'd walked past him, grabbing the kettle from the counter to render to the woods stove. One time she was busy and facing away from him, he shoved off his pants and boxers, pointedly non looking her direction every bit he replaced them with the dry pair of sweatpants.
Fifty-fifty with how cold he was, if she'd been watching, she would've gotten an eyeful of exactly how being in the same room with her afflicted him.
Rachel Malone. Ever since she'd come to town and started work at the café, he'd had his heart on her. So had a lot of other guys, but Lee was positive he had more to offer her than the rest of them.
Just every time he asked her out, she'd turned him down. Politely teasing he didn't want to date someone as quondam equally her.
At that place might be a few years between them, merely he didn't requite a damn. Mayhap some guys took longer to abound upwardly. Lee had pretty much always known what his goals were, and from everything he'd seen about Rachel, he thought they would exist just about perfect together.
Information technology was hard to show when he never got a chance.
He grabbed his moisture things and joined her by the fire. "Let me hang these upwards so they're out of our fashion."
She shifted to the side, simply there wasn't much room. He leaned forward to curtain his pants over a hook backside the stove. The move brushed him against her, tormenting him even more than the odour of apple tree-blossom off her skin.
"Aren't your feet freezing?" she asked, eyeing the wet footprints he'd left, moisture soaking through the wool.
"I've got extra socks. I didn't want to put them on notwithstanding and get them wet." He reached past her once again, grabbing the broom leaning against the wall. "Sit down down. I'll clean around yous. By the time the h2o boils, we'll both exist warmed up."
Source: https://graycity.net/vivian-arend/458936-rocky_mountain_retreat.html
0 Response to "Read Vivian Arend Rocky Mountain Home Online Free"
Post a Comment